The national school system reduces all this to a fixed curriculum and salaried practitioners, with a rigid modus operandi. For an Orang Asli child entering the school system for the first time, he is thrust into a new environment and has to deal with new people with differing cultures and values. This comes as a shock to him. Some may be able to adapt, others may simply choose to withdraw. An Orang Asli child who is not accustomed to being beaten or scolded, for example, will be fearful of returning to school if such action is committed against the child. Sometimes an innocent threat is enough to cause an Orang Asli to stay away from school. I once came across two Orang Asli primary schoolboys who stayed away from school for the first week because their name tags were not ready. Their headmistress had told the students at an assembly that the wearing of the name tags was compulsory and that those who did not wear them would not be allowed in school. As it turned out, they did not have their name tags because the supplier had run out of raw materials. Orang Asli first-year schoolers are also generally ‘slower’ than the other students primarily because they do not have the exposure that the others get. For example, not all Orang Asli children have the opportunity to attend kindergarten, and therefore are not able to read and write when they enter Primary 1, let alone be conversant in Malay. Nor do they have the advantage of access to all sorts of educational toys or TV programmes during their preschool years. This puts them at a great disadvantage compared to other students and can sometimes be the reason for them being ‘left behind’ in the academic progress. Orang Asli schoolchildren are also frequently bullied or ridiculed as a consequence of the prejudice and ignorance of their origins and their culture. Most Orang Asli children are able to cope, but a significant number choose to leave school, usually in the early years, in order to avoid having to face such distressing behaviour from their non-Orang Asli peers. That is, they choose to apply the “flee-rather-than-fight” value of their fore- 58 ORANG ASLI – RIGHTS, PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS